Obama’s America: The View from Prague (UPDATED)

Courtesy of some Facebook friends, a translation of an editorial from the Czech newspaper Prager Zeitungon:

The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president.

SCOTT adds: Professor Alan Charles Kors writes to question the source and authenticity of the editorial:

The supposed editorial in question was discussed online starting in July, so, if it existed, it referred most belatedly to his original election (?), not to any re-election. I say “supposed,” because a search of the actual website reveals no such article (though, of course, it could be a defective search-engine). I found only a single mention of Obama on its website: http://www.pragerzeitung.cz/
which had no resemblance to the piece allegedly translated but perhaps the search engine does not go back to its archives. Has anyone even seen this piece?

STEVE updates: Apparently this is a semi-spurious item. The quotation is real, but there is no newspaper by this name. Apparently the comment originated with an email made around 2010 or earlier, and was picked up and spread by some other blogs, especially Gates of Vienna. How it became attributed to a newspaper is still unclear; probably one of those “telephone” exercises where things get changed and embellished by increments as it is passed along.

The general point it makes is worth pondering, whatever the source. As I put it in an article coming out in the next print edition of National Review, this election result raises the question of whether we have passed the point of no return, or whether sufficient “republican virtue” remains in the American people. This is the central question of American politics for the next four years.

Thanks to numerous Power Line readers who flagged this and dug up additional information.

(Memo to self: Stop blogging in the car on I-15. No, I wasn’t driving. I was curled up in the back seat. But still. . .)